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I have rescuing kittens from from animal shelters for the past 30 years.
The photos below are two of three adorable cats we adopted. The youngest we had to name “Baby” is a adorable gray tabby. The oldest of the bunch is “Lucky ” a gorgeous eight year old Siamese cat with the bluest eyes I have ever seen. We also have the sweetest Blue Russian cat, “Gia,” who was very badly abused as a kitten when we adopted her five years ago from The Humane Society.
My cats are so loved by me and my family and as I am writing this post, two of them are sleeping in my bed with my husband! LOL!!!
I want to point out that that most of the most of many cats that we adopted over the years were just ordinary mixed breeds. Each and everyone of them touched our lives in such a special way.
When you experience the joy of seeing the the look of love in a cat’s eyes that was rescued you truly haven’t lived.

I have been in relationships good and bad. I’ve been engaged 4 times and married twice. I also made my share of bad choices in choosing toxic men thattook pieces of me I can never get back. I had my heart broken twice in my life and one of these heartbreaks nearly ruined my life.

Everyone is looking for their “happy ever after” but not everyone is meant to find Mr. Right.

Friends of mine look for love in all the wrong places, for example, online dating sites and social media. Lucky for me cell phones and the internet were not even invented when I met both my husbands. I met my first husband at the tender age of 23 on a Tuesday night at NYC club called the Palladium. This very tall dark handsome guy locked eyes on me when I first entered the club and 15 minutes later he…

Yesterday, while reading through some posts, I found this story and just had to make sure I can share it with you guys here. If you too have a wonderful story to tell which I can feature for “Couples” please email me. I appreciate it!

Thank you so much, Loved 2015, for letting me share this story with my readers!

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Really? Even if people won’t want to date you ever again for fear that you’ll one day talk about them on stage? You’re sure?

Okay. Welcome aboard.

Here’s a cheap glass of wine. Where we’re going, you’ll need it.

I’ve got to tell you – I think you’ve picked a great time to get into the story game. I mean, with the success of storytelling podcasts like The Moth, RISK!, Definitely Not the Opera, Snap Judgement and This American Life millions of people are now aware of the phenomenon of modern storytelling. Just about every city in North America now has a regular storytelling event, and there seems to be more opportunities for storytellers than ever before. For raconteurs like us, the getting has never been good-er.

But before you start speaking your heart into the crackly microphone at the local roti place’s storytelling event (at which no one is there to actually hear stories [they’re just there…

The suicide and suicide letter of Leelah Alcorn haunt me. They have gripped my heart and not let go, squeezing tighter every time I think about them. And, I think about them often.

Leelah’s suicide affects me so deeply because, like her, my child is differently gendered — putting him in the group of children who have the highest rate of suicide attempts in the world.

That could be my child. That could have been my brother.

We grew up in very religious home. We went to youth group on Wednesday nights and church every Sunday. If you didn’t go to church, you didn’t go anywhere else.

Starting in seventh grade, at age 12, I was taught that being gay was one of the worst sins a person could commit and being transgender was unspeakable. When I was in high school and my brother came out…

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Growing up I had a few minor hook-ups mostly when I had a little too much too drink at a club or a party. I basically spent most of my teenage years observing and listening to my popular girlfriends telling me every intimate detail about their boyfriends.
I learned to be a good listener and even offered my advice if they asked me. I wasn’t ever bitter or jealous of my friends who had boyfriends because I knew I my time would come when boys would start to notice me.
The summer before I started college I worked in a camp as a life guard during the day and at night went to many parties where teens from many local north shore camps would meet up in a local club. One night I went with my close friend “Karen” to a small club that somehow survived the post disco era. My friend karen ,who like me had never had a “real” boyfriend , spotted this hunky dark haired guy who really wasn’t my type. She must of caught his attention because he was walking towards us and karen got all excited. OMG she whispered, ” he is so hot and I think he is going to ask me to dance.”
Then he approached us and introduced himself to us. His name was Jeff and he was from Jericho. Then he asked us our names and I let Karen do all the talking. Then the strangest thing happened, Jeff asked me to dance and not Karen. She gave me a nasty look but for the first time in my life I put myself first and spent the rest of the night feeling like a princess at her first ball.
Karen however made quite a few nasty comments about Jeff on the drive home. “He’s never going to call you any way” she said.
That’s was the moment I finally stood up for myself and replied, “It’s not my fault he was more attracted to me than you!”
The next day Jeff came over my house to go swimming in my pool. I answered the door confidently in a white bikini. “WOW! was Jeff’s response.
After years of feeling like a ugly duckling I finally became a swan.

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I was a late bloomer , actually very late. I was very introverted in my early teens and read an entire new book every day. I also came down with a life threatening illness that affected my right side of face to the point I just avoided mirrors from 12-15yrs of age. Throw in some puberty, a few pimples and oily hair on top of my undiagnosed illness .that stumped at least 10 NYC Park Avenue doctors , and it created a perfect storm for me that ruined the so called “best years of my life.”
I was always a fighter and although I felt I was dying on the inside whenever someone stared at my face or made a cruel comment in the middle of class, I swallowed the pain like a pill and went to Junior and Senior HS with a smile on my face and held my head up high.
I still had my best girlfriends who I met in kindergarten who never left my side and even defended me when someone bullied me. I had lots of friends and led a very normal young teen life despite my prognosis that I wouldn’t survive past the age 15 when I accidentally heard a group of specialists who still didn’t have a clue what I had, tell my parents my illness was spreading into my nerves and jawbone rapidly and concluded It was terminal. I still remember I didn’t cry when I heard the shocking news, I just got dressed in silence in the now empty examination room and swallowed the tears and fears and met my pale , devastated parents in the lobby and of course I was smiling.
We got into my dad’s station wagon and my parents were both silent. To make matters worse my father decided to go threw a very neighborhood in upper Manhattan to get home and got lost somehow because he wasn’t paying attention and now we were in a very bad part of Bronx on that bitter cold December night and all of a sudden the car just died……… that’s when my parents broke down too.I